ONE WAY TO CULTIVATE COURAGE ~ 37

COURAGE AND PRESENCE OF MIND MEAN THE SAME THING. PRESENCE

of mind implies command of mind.Cowardice and lack of mental control mean about the same

thing. Cowardice is rooted in hurry, the habit of hurry or lackof repose.

All degrees of success are based on courage-mental or physical.All degrees of failure are based on timidity.You can cultivate courage and increase it at every minute and

hour of the day. You can have the satisfaction of knowing that ineverything you do you have accomplished two things-namely, thedoing of the thing itself and by the manner of its doing, addingeternally to yourself another atom of the quality of courage. You cando this by the cultivation of deliberation-deliberation of speech, ofwalk, of writing, of eating-deliberation in everything.

There is alwaysa bit of fear where there is a bit of hurry. When youhurry to the train you are in fear that you may be left, and with thatcomes fear of other possibilities consequent on your being left. Whenyou hurry to the party, to the meeting of a person by appointment, youare in fear of some ill or damage resulting from not being in time.

This habit of thought can, through an unconscious training,grow to such an extent as to pervade a person's mind, at all timesand places, and bring on a fear of loss of some kind, when there isabsolutely no loss to be sustained. For instance a person may hurry to

catch a street car and act and feel as if a great loss would occur didhe not get on that particular car, when there may be another closebehind, or at most two or three minutes' waiting will bring it. Yet thefear of waiting those three minutes grows to a mountain in size, and isin that person's mind a most disagreeable possibility. Through merehabit a similar condition of hurry may characterize that person'swalking, eating, writing-in short, everything he does, and will ren-der it more and more difficult for such person to act with coolnessand deliberation.

The quality of mind or emotion underlying all this hurried men-tal condition and consequent hurried act, is fear. Fear is but anothername for lack of power to control our minds, or, in other words, tocontrol the kind of thought we think or put out.

It is this kind of unconscious mental training (which is verycommon), that begets a permanent condition of mind more andmore liable to large and small panics at the least interruption ortrivial disappointment. It makes disappointments when none are nec-essary. It is the ever-opening wedge letting in more and more thethought current of fear. For if you so cultivate fear of one thing youare cultivating and increasing liability to fear in all things. If you allowyourself to sit in fear for half an hour that the carriage may not callfor you in time to get to the boat or train, you are much more liableto be seized with a series of little panics at every trivial occurrence orobstacle occurring on that particular journey.

In this way does this habit of mind enter into and is cultivated inthe doing of so-called little things. You are writing or sewing, orengaged in the performance of some work which is intensely interest-ing to you, and in which you do not like to be interrupted. If sewing,you reach for your scissors which have dropped on the floor. You dothis in a momentarily impatient mood and with a spasmodic jerkyaction. Your mind, as the phrase runs, is "on your work."You will nottake it off your work while reaching for the scissors. You are trying inmind to go on with your work and reach for the scissors at the samemoment. You make the movement of muscles and the action of thebody momentarily disagreeable and irksome, because you refuse forthe second to put into that act the force which it demands. When

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unconsciously you refuse to do this, any act will become irksome anddisagreeable, because there is not force enough let on to do the actwith ease. It is the endeavor to do it with a weak body. You have thepower of throwing your force instantly into any muscle, so makingthe act easy and pleasant. This capacity for turning on force on anypart you will increases through cultivating it. And you can do a greatdeal more and do it better through this cultivation of deliberation,for deliberation can be as quick as thought, the more the mind istrained in that direction.

If you pick up a pin or tie a shoestring in a hurry, you do so notonly because such act is irksome to you, but because you fear it maydeprive you momentarily of some bit of pleasure. There you haveagain opened your mind to the thought current of fear-fear oflosing something.

The cultivation of courage commences in the cultivation of delib-eration in so-called little acts like these. Deliberation and courageare as closely allied as fear and hurry. If we do not learn to governour force properly in the doing of the smallest act we shall find suchgovernment far less easy in the doing of all acts.

If we analyze what we fear, we shall find we are in mind tryingto deal with too much at once of the thing feared. There is only arelatively small amount to be dealt with now. In any transaction-inthe doing of anything there is but one step to be taken at a time. Weneed to place what force is necessary, and no more on that one step.When that is taken we can take the next.

The more we train our minds so to concentrate on the one step,the more do we increase capacity for sending our force all in onegiven direction at once. Such force extends, and should be so used inthe so-called minutest details of everyday life.

In this way deliberation and deliberate action become habitual,and we are in a sense unconscious of making ourselves deliberate,even as after long training in the opposite and wrong direction weare unconscious of putting on the hurried frame of mind.

Timidity is often the result of looking at too many difficultiesor terrors at once. In material reality we have to deal with but oneat a time.

If we are going to what we fear will be a disagreeable interviewwith a harsh, irascible, over-bearing person, we are apt to go, occu-pying our minds with the whole interview, setting ourselves down inthe very middle of it, and seeing it in mind as necessarily trying ordisagreeable. Perhaps we were thinking of it this morning while wewere dressing. But it was then our proper business to dress. To dresswas a necessary step for the interview and to dress well also. Possiblyit occupied our thoughts while eating. But it was then our properbusiness to eat and get all the pleasure possible from our food. Thatwas another step. The more reposeful our eating, the more vigorouswill become our taste, and the more strength will our food give ourbodies. Possibly the fear of this interview was on us as we walked tothe place appointed for it. But it was then our proper businessto walk and get from our walking all the pleasure we could. Thatwas another step. Pleasure is the sure result of placing thought orforce on the thing we are doing now, and pain of some sort in bothpresent and future is the certain result of sending thought or forceaway from the act which needs to be done at this moment. Whenwe dress, eat, walk or do anything with mind placed on somethingelse, we are making the present act irksome; we are training to makeevery act irksome and disagreeable; we are making the thing feareda certainty, for what we put out in thought as unpleasant is an actualthing, a reality. And the longer we continue to put it out the moreforce we add to it, and the more likely is it then to be realized in thephysical world.

To bring us what all want and are seeking for, namely-happiness,we need to have perfect control of our mind and thought at all timesand places. One most important and necessary means for gainingthis, lies in this discipline regarding so-called little or trivial things,just as the discipline and movement of an army commences with thetraining of the private soldiers' legs and arms. If you hurry and slurover these so-called petty details, you are the easier thrown off yourguard or confused at unexpected occurrences, and in life it is theunexpected that is alwayshappening.

We need to keep always our mind present with us. We want italways on the spot ready to use in any direction. Our thought is not

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on the spot when we tie a shoestring and think a mile from thatshoestring-when we mend a pencil and dwell in one of tomorrow'scares. It is then away,and if it has for a lifetime been in the habit ofso straying from the act in hand to the act afar off, it becomes moreand more difficult to bring it back to use, and more difficult to use itpromptly when it is brought back. Our thought moves from one thingto another with more than electric speed, and we can unconsciouslytrain this quickness to be ever darting from one thing to anotheruntil it becomes almost impossible to keep it on one thing for ten con-secutive seconds. On the contrary, through cultivation of repose anddeliberation in all things we can train ourselves to mass and fastenour thought on anything as long as we please, to throw ourselves intoany mood of mind we please, and to throw ourselves at will into sleepor a semi-conscious, dreamy state as restful as sleep. These are verysmall parts of the possibilities for the human mind. There is no limitto its growth or the increase of its power, and no thing coming withinthe limits of our imagination but can be accomplished by it. Thesteps to these attainments are very small, very simple and relativelyeasy-so simple and easy that some reject them for that reason.

Unquestionably, these powers and many results coming of theirexercise were known ages ago to a relative few. But any power or anycondition of mind consequent upon it can be made more clear to anEnglish-speaking people, through the use of an English word or formof expression than by terms taken from other languages.

The North American Indian and the Oriental had in cases thepower of so dismissing all thought and making their minds in a sensea blank as to become not only insensible to fear, but this mental con-dition rendered their bodies almost insensible to physical suffering.It was the power of inducing this mental condition which enabledthe Indian when taken captive to withstand every device of tortureinflicted by his captors, and to sing his death song under the inflic-tion of fire and a slow process of bodily mutilation too horrible fordescription, and which very few of our race could endure withoutpassing into the frenzy of agony.

The Indian is far more reposeful and deliberate than the majorityof our race, in both mental and physical movement. Unconsciously

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cultivating this repose, and living a life less artificial than ours, heincreased his spiritual power, one sure result of which is that com-mand of mind over body which can lessen physical pain, and as anultimate possibility banish it altogether.

Deliberation of movement, or in plainer English movement ofmuscle so slow that our mind has time to follow it, gives one timeto think in great and small emergencies. But the lack of such train-ing causes unconscious physical action. So confirmed becomes thishabit, that the body moves ere we are aware of it. Awkwardness, lackof address, lack of tact are all due to this lack of command of mindcaused by lack of deliberation, or in other words, a trained incapacityfor taking time to think or plan the proper thing to do.

The terror-stricken person if the ship seems in sudden dangerruns up and down the deck to no purpose, and this physical action isan exact correspondence of the lifelong condition of his mind whosethought has been ever so darting from one thing to another, justas the whim seized him.

The more deliberate person whose mind is trained to take time tothink and hold or concentrate its thought, holds himself steady, andso gives himself time to see what may be the opportunities for escape.And these two persons would pick up a pin in a very different mannerand with very different mental action and method.

To train then for courage is to train for deliberate movement inall things, for that is simply training to mass and hold your forcein reserve and let out no more than is needed for the moment.

No quality of mind is more needful to success in all undertakingsthan courage, and by courage I mean not only courage to act butcourage to think. In everyday business, thousands dare not thinkof taking a step which would involve an outlay of money above theaverage of their expenditure. They are appalled at mention of solarge a sum. They will not, out of pure fright, entertain the idea longenough to familiarize themselves with it. Now if they reversed thismental action, and instead of immediately giving way out of lifelonghabit to this fright, would take time and allow the thought to restin their minds instead of driving it out, there would in time come tothem ideas concerning ways and means for meeting the additional

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expense, and thereby making a larger sum of money in the same timeit took to make the small sum.

For instance, you say to the women who goes out to wash by theday and has never done anything else. "Mrs. A., why don't you start alaundry? You can make a great deal more money in so doing."

"I start a laundry! Where in the world is the money coming fromto start a laundry?" is her reply. Here the woman instead of entertain-ing your idea gives way immediately to fright concerning what seemsto her the immense sum required, and following the same unrea-soning, headlong, panicky style of thought, sets up in a moment anopposition to your proposition. She dare think only of working forday's wages as she is called upon by those who hire her. And thou-sands for this reason dare not think, or find it disagreeable for themto think, of getting into some broader, more responsible and moreprofitable sphere of business, bec~use they bunch at once all itspossible difficulties into a mass, and out of mere habit will look onlyat that awful and imaginary bunch.

But Mrs. C., the more deliberate washerwoman, hears your propo-sition and entertains it. In time she says to herself, "Why should I notstart a laundry? Other people have and have succeeded." She lives inthe idea, talks to one and another about it, and finds out how theystarted. The longer she keeps in this current of thought the moreplainly does she see the waysand means by which other people have"set up for themselves." Finally, the idea so grows upon her, that shetakes some step toward that end, and then another and another, andso by degrees drifts into the business.

A person is cool and collected in face of any great danger, becausehe has the power of holding his mind to the thing to be done on theinstant. Cowardice has no such power, and can see in mind not onlythe source of danger, but a score of possible results which mayor maynot happen to him. In battle one man may attend to his duty with avivid and by no means agreeable condition of mind as he sees menstruck and mangled all about him. But the force or thought he canbring to bear on the performance of his duty is greater in amountthan that coming of the realization of the slaughter around him, andcommands and holds his body to his post. The man who runs, or

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would if he had the chance, cannot fix his mind on anything but thefearful possibilities of the moment.

In the so-called trivial act of picking up a pin, or threading a nee-dle, or opening a door, I do not argue that all one's force or thoughtshould be placed on the act, but only enough to perform the actwell while the rest is kept in reserve. It is in substance the same as inpicking up a weight, you would not try to expend the force in liftingone pound that you would in lifting fifty pounds. You do expend agreat deal more force in the act of picking up a pin when your mindis preoccupied with something else, for you are then trying to do twothings or lift two weights at once.

You will remember that anything which is done in mind, expendsquite as much force as if done with the body, so that the persons wholinger abed in the morning and think with dread of the breakfasts tobe cooked, or the rooms to be swept, so far as expenditure of forceis concerned, will be doing those acts then and there while lying on

their backs.In expending just force enough to perform any act (a capacity

which will gradually grow upon you as you familiarize yourself withthis idea and set your desire or demand upon it), you cultivate andincrease continually that desirable state of mind, which in everydaylanguage is known as "having your wits about you." That means, inother words, alwayshaving, no matter what you are doing, your men-tal eyes open in every direction, and while outwardly you seem allintent and occupied in the one act, your mind or spirit like a vigilantsentinel is continually on the look-out, so as to give you notice in thefractional part of an instant of all that is going on about you, andalso to direct you how to meet the event whatever it may be. Thisis not only the characteristic of courage, but of tact and address.It was this electric vigilance and mind watchfulness that gave anAmerican officer during the Revolution, who, in the confusion ofbattle, suddenly found himself in front of a British regiment, thedeliberation to ask, "What troops are these?" "The Royal Scots,"was the reply. "Royal Scots remain as you are," was his answer, andhe rode off to his own lines. That man had a mind trained to givehim time to think.

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On one occasion, Mrs. Farren, the celebrated English actress,discovered where her part required her to hem a handkerchief thatthe property man had forgotten to layout the handkerchief needle,thread, ete. Without a moment's hesitation she sat down and imitatedso naturally the motion and manner of a lady in sewing that mostof her audience never suspected the omission. That act involved selfpossession, coolness, deliberation, presence of mind, courage. Donot all these terms imply a similar state of mind? A woman habitu-ally hurried and flurried could not have done this, and I believe thatwhen Mrs. Farren saw proper to pick up a pin, she did so in a muchmore deliberate manner than would the habitually hurried, flurriedman or woman.

Cultivate deliberate act and movement in all things, and you laymore and more the solid foundation for courage, either moral orphysical. But deliberate act does not always imply slowness. Just asthought moves with electric rapidity, so may it move the body whenoccasion requires, but the thought must be clearly planned, seen andoutlined in mind before it is allowed to act on the body. It is so seen orplanned, and so acts to use the muscles in the rapid thrust and parryof the skilled fencer, and similarly with the professional danseuse, infact in all superior accomplishments, be they of painter, musician orother artist. These, however, in many cases, are but partial controls ofmind. Outside of his art, the artist may have little mental control ordeliberation, and as a result be "nervous" vacillating, easily disturbed,whimsical, and timid. The mind is our garrison to be armed at allpoints and disciplined to meet any emergency.

We deal with the making (or self-making) of whole men and women,whose minds are not cultivated all in one direction and neglectedeverywhere else. It is far better in the end to be growing symmetricallyand to be finished so far as we have grown "all around," than to haveour power all concentrated on one talent or capacity, and becomingwhat the world calls a "Genius." The inside history of Genius is often asad one, and shows that it brought little happiness to its possessor.

Scores and hundreds of the little acts of everyday life, such as pick-ing dropped articles from the floor, opening and shutting drawers,laying or reaching for articles on the toilet table, and attending to

minor details of dress, are done unconsciously in this hurried condi-tion of mind, especially when some more important object engagesour attention. We snatch, we clutch, we drive recklessly about in thedoing of these things, and we weaken our bodies and become tiredout, and finally "panicky," and easily frightened through this mentalhabit, for fear and cowardice slip in far more easily when the bodyis weak.

This habit cannot be changed in a day or a year when it has per-vaded a lifetime. Neither can the ills, mental and physical, resultingfrom such habit, be cured immediately. There can be only gradualgrowth awayfrom them.

If in reading this you feel convinced that there is "something init," and feel also a conviction that some portion of it suits your owncase, your cure has then commenced. Real conviction, the convictionthat comes from within, never leaves one or stops working to get usout of the evil wayand put us in the good one. It may seem buried andforgotten for seasons, and our erroneous habits may seem growingstronger than ever. That is not so. But as convictions take root we areseeing our errors more and more clearly. We forget that at one timewe were blind and did not see them at all.

If this book brings to you a conviction of a long established errorit is not I individually who bring or convince. It is only that I put outmore or less of a truth, which takes hold of you and the chord of truthin you senses it. If I apply the torch to the gasjet and light it, it doesnot follow that I make either the fire or the gas. I am only a means oragent for lighting that gas. No man makes or invents a truth. Truthis as general and widely spread and belongs to every individual asmuch as the air we breathe, and there is pleasure enough in being itstorchbearer without presuming to claim the power of its Creator.

Above all demand more and more courage of the Supreme Power.